It’s Vintage Jackson on Last Daily Show

At 8:55 a.m. Thursday, just before going on the air for his last daily broadcast at KABC-AM (790), Michael Jackson was speaking on the phone to his wife, Alana, whom he married in 1966--just a year before he got his six-day-a-week gig at the station.

Now, after nearly 31 years at the station, Jackson was seemingly business as usual as he prepared for his show. He told his wife that he had just finished taping an interview with Dan Goldin, administrator for the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, his last weekday studio guest. He wanted the interview on hand “in case I get a little overwhelmed,” he explained. “Just to break it up. I’m not here to do an obituary. I want to do a good show.”

Exactly 24 hours earlier, Jackson, 63, had learned for certain that he was being limited to weekend-only shows, which will begin later this month, and that Thursday was the end of the line for his daily programs. RonnOwens, a longtime broadcaster on ABC Radio’s KGO-AM in San Francisco, will simulcast in both cities beginning July 14, and will spend every other week in the Southland.

Maureen Lesourd, president and general manager of KABC, indicated Wednesday that the change was prompted by Jackson’s ratings against syndicated conservative host Rush Limbaugh on KFI-AM (640). Owens, she said, “consistently beats” Limbaugh in San Francisco.

Jackson was clearly not happy about the change. But ever the professional, even on what he called this “difficult, atypical day,” Jackson delivered the way he always did. Over the years, his show was a touchstone for reasoned discussion of everything from politics to entertainment. Although his accent was British, his program was quintessential Los Angeles.

Not surprisingly, in this, his umpteenth show--Jackson never bothered to count precisely how many he had hosted; he said he never dreamed this day would come--the tone was valedictory. Many callers said they were angry that he was being moved to weekends and grateful for the years of Monday-to-Friday listening he had provided.

But it was also vintage Jackson: quiet humor, good conversation and no gimmicks.

Immaculately groomed in a pale blue shirt and green print tie, the silver-haired, silver-tongued host took his seat at the microphone several minutes before his show was set to begin. The subject for the first hour or so was, sadly, the death of Jimmy Stewart on Wednesday.

“I know what I’ll do,” Jackson told his engineer impishly. “I’m going to say I’ll miss, I’ll miss”--he paused dramatically--”Jimmy Stewart.” It was as if he were going to bring up his own career change. But when the moment to pause came on the air, he played it straight up.

He told his listeners he wanted Thursday to be “a morning like any other,” but of course it wasn’t. He related how he liked to get into the studio early, at 6:47 each morning. “I won’t be doing that anymore,” he said. His audience might have caught the crack in his voice, but they could not see him wipe his eyes.

Jackson played tapes of old interviews of his with Stewart. In the last of them, Jackson asked gently the sort of question he is known for. What’s it like, he asked the aging actor, to be in your 80s? Stewart replied that he was “slowing down” but added after a bit, “It’s been a wonderful life.”

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And in the interview with NASA’s Goldin, Jackson asked his favorite question--”what is it you want to know?”--and got this reply: “I want to know if we’re alone [in space].”

The sentiment that surfaced frequently during Jackson’s last daily show did not get in the way of a tense moment or two, however. When ABC-TV’s Sam Donaldson, a regular caller, was in the middle of a chat that was just about to get into something about President Clinton, suddenly there was no Donaldson. “Who cut him off?” Jackson demanded. “Damn! Maybe he was going to say something nice.”

The tension also surfaced off-air in a memo dated Wednesday that went out to the KABC programming staff and hosts that said, “Do not make any comments on the air whatsoever concerning upcoming programming changes involving Michael Jackson and/or RonnOwens.” The memo ordered hosts to “not engage any callers” in such discussions and told screeners that callers who wanted to do that “should be screened out.”

Easier said than done. How, for instance, do you stop a mayor or other pols from talking?

As if on cue, at 10:52 a.m., Los Angeles Mayor Richard Riordan called in from Idaho to tell Jackson that “you’ve been the heart and intellect of Los Angeles, and you will continue to be.” The mayor said he was proud to have Jackson as a friend.

But Jackson clearly wanted his audience to know he was not soft on his friends. “You’re not my friend in front of a microphone; you’re my mayor,” Jackson said. That meant that sometimes he had to ask questions that were “damn right unfriendly--because that’s my job.”

Other politicians, such as Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) and Los Angeles Councilwoman Rita Walters, also phoned in. But so did regular folks, such as Laurie, who said her most memorable moment was listening to Jackson with her infant son when the 1992 riots “exploded.” It was Jackson’s “professionalism [that] got me to my destination,” she said.

And there was Rodney, who decried the radio station’s “shocking” decision to shove Jackson to the weekends. And Fran, who said that, thanks to a Jackson show awhile ago, she was able to get needed cancer treatment.

Other callers suggested a picket or some sort of demonstration, but Jackson discouraged such activity.

Five minutes before the end of the show, a caller, Mary, clearly in tears, said simply: “Michael Jackson, I love you. I’m crying.”

“I’m doing the same,” he said, though holding his voice steady. “Let’s cry together.”

And when the show went off the air, he did.